Porter Collins and Vincent Daniel are the founders of Seawolf Capital, their family office managed as an old school hedge fund. Previously, they were two of the three members of Steve Eisman’s team at Frontpoint Capital and found themselves in print and on the silver screen as protagonists in Michael Lewis’ The Big Short. Regulations prevent us from disclosing investment returns almost all the time on the show, but Porter and Vinny manage only their own money today and are an exception to that rule. In the three full years since they started managing their own capital, the pair is up an extraordinary 9x, coming off a 169% return in 2022.

Our conversation covers Porter and Vinny’s background, the Big Short trade, launch of Seawolf 1.0, short stint at Citadel, and lessons learned along the way and put to work at Seawolf 2.0, their family office. We discuss their contrarian value investment approach, transition from financial sector specialists to generalists, investment themes, and the banking system. We close with their perspective on the hedge fund industry and the future of Seawolf.

Show Notes:

05:13 Backgrounds
09:43 Big Short trade at Front Point Partners
16:19 Launch of Seawolf 1.0
19:15 Stint at Citadel and lessons learned
24:40 Seawolf 2.0
25:53 Transition from a financial sector focus to generalists
27:12 Investment themes today
29:51 Contrarian value investing
34:37 Banking system
38:01 Themes looking forward
43:15 Hedge fund industry
46:40 Achieving +150% returns
48:54 Future of Seawolf
50:52 Closing questions